


Blue Steel

by SilverServerError



Category: CLAMP - Works, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: KuroFai Olympics, KuroFai Olympics 2016, M/M, a heartwarming tale of gay robots and the nerds that love them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 15:49:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7690471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverServerError/pseuds/SilverServerError
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not a sexbot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so excited to be participating in this years KuroFai Olympics! This fandom and these characters are so near and dear to my heart. This fic has been a labor of love for everyone who has participated in whatever way over the years. The special quality of this community can be found everywhere and nowhere was it more apparent than the many people who reached out, lending their talents to support me through this month. Specifically I want to give a shout out to my wonderful coach [the-smallest-kurapika](http://the-smallest-kurapika.tumblr.com/), as well as [Winblossomwin](http://winblossomwin.tumblr.com/), [Lua](http://vidronoliquidificador.tumblr.com/), [Aquariusgaluxy](http://invisible-as-i-run.tumblr.com/), [K_N](http://a03-k-n.tumblr.com/),[Cuddlebiscuit](http://cuddlebiscuit.tumblr.com/) and everyone else who gave me encouragement! Also a shout very much needs to go out to [SilkCut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilkCut/pseuds/SilkCut) who got me thinking about this verse in the first place. You all made this month so fun and helped me though the ups and the downs. I am so thankful for each and every one of you. 
> 
> I am so nervous and excited to finally be sharing this piece with all of you! Please let me know what you think! 

 

**Persocoms.**

Awkward.

Clunky.

Barely operational.

Each one a unique train wreck.

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s not a sexbot!”

 

Fai had never seen Syaoran blush so hard before. Well, maybe he  _ had _ , but it had been a while.

 

“So, you guys went with ‘pleasurebot’ instead?”

 

“No! It’s nothing like that!” Syaoran pulled the tablet out of Fai’s hands and held it protectively to his chest. “Why are you always such a perv about things like this?”

 

Fai spoke in his teasing lilt. “You say that, but I’m not the one with blueprints for robot genitalia.”

 

Fai didn’t think Syaoran’s eyes could get any bigger, but somehow they did. He looked back at the kitchen where Seishiro was still making dinner. It was nominally a different room, but the open floor plan meant he could hear every word they were saying.

 

“Is that what the EECS department has been getting up to?” Seishiro mused from his place at the stove with a serene smile, flipping a sizzling steak over with a pair of tongs. “They always seemed a bit shady. I should have kept you in biology with me.”

 

“Hey! Woah, it’s not like that at all, Dad. Fai’s just being,” and here Syaoran turned to glare meaningfully at him, “Incredibly inappropriate.”

 

Fai for his part just leered knowingly into the kitchen. Syaoran didn’t have the heart to look back to see if the sentiment was being returned. Fai was a little older, a sort of big brother figure to Syaoran ever since he’d been his T.A. freshman year, but that slight age gap didn’t make it any more palatable when he and his dad started flirting.

 

“Oh, hush and set the table.” Seishiro’s voice was thankfully even. They’d apparently moved on from the subject.

 

It wasn’t the most awkward dinner he’d ever sat through, but it was up there.

 

* * *

 

 

DESIGNATION:                     “BLACK STEEL”

CLASSIFICATION:                 PERSOCOM

HAIR COLOR:                        BLACK

EYE COLOR:                          BLACK (UNINSTALLED)

HEIGHT:                                6’6”

CPU:                                     NvIntel i12-15000

RAM:                                    CruSair 256GB (4x 64GB)

NGPU:                                   NvIntel GTX-5980

NOTES:                                  SEE SYAORAN LI

 

* * *

 

 

Forty-five minutes later, Syaoran had Fai in the privacy of his room. Fai was sort of excitable at the best of times so he’d asked him to sit on the bed. He had rolled his eyes but acquiesced.

 

“Ok so… don’t freak out, but… Yeah, it’s a sexbot.”

 

Fai was on his feet with an ecstatic grin in a moment. “I  _ knew _ it!”

 

“Shhh! Oh my god, keep it down!”

 

Fai held the tablet close to his face like it was something precious. Skinny fingers swiped to the left faster than Syaoran could really believe Fai could take in the information. He slowed to a halt as the pictures were brought on screen. The first was just the chassis of the face, then with movement hardware added bit by bit. The penultimate shot was the exposed armature of the completed face. The final was what it looked like with the translucent skin overlaid. The finished version would be opaque and flesh toned, but for now it was essentially clear, but scattered the light, giving only the barest impression of the machinery moving behind it.

 

“We tried to make him realistic enough to be attracted to.”

 

“And landed in the uncanny valley in the process?”

 

“Yeah…”

 

“If you want my advice, lose the teeth.”

 

“What, really?”

 

“People know they’re getting with a machine, right? Why try to hide it? Just play up what they do well.”

 

Syaoran gaped at him a little. “Which would be…?”

Fai just shrugged. “Pistons? Motors? Brushed steel? You know that sort of fuzzy metal feeling some plastic finishes have?”

No? “And that’s supposed to be sexy? Because right now you’re essentially describing any kitchen appliance.”

“What, like you’ve never wanted to fuck a really nice looking toaster?”

“Um… no? I think that might just be you, Fai.”

Fai looked up at him, genuinely surprised. “Oh, shit. Really?” Then to Syaoran’s horror he kept going. “Seriously? Because I’ve seen your kitchen and it’s all chrome and-”

“Fai please stop talking. Also, you are never allowed to house-sit again.”

“Rude.”

 

* * *

 

>OpenSSVNC_11.3p1 Debian-3ubuntu7, OpenSSL 0.9.8k

>debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config 

>debug1: Applying options for * 

>debug1: Connecting to 172.16.248.xx [172.16.248.xx] port 22. 

>debug1: Connection established. 

>debug1: permanently_set_uid: 0/0

 

* * *

 

 

Syaoran had warned him that this little consultation wasn’t exactly on the books. He’d shown up earlier that morning, lugging the machine up the stairs with the help of his friend, a classmate he’d introduced as Doumeki. He was a quiet kid whose personality consisted, as far as Fai could tell, of owning a truck and having decent upper body strength.

They hadn’t stuck around long. Doumeki had a plane to catch and it wasn’t like Syaoran couldn’t come over later if he was needed.

So it was that Fai stood once again alone in his apartment, carefully unwrapping his illicit gift, the protective layers falling away a little like the wrappings of a mummy. Fai gasped as he finally got a good look at him.

He-

It?

It was stunning. Clean lines and matte aluminum bonded in smooth seams to a sort of soft plastic that gave a little under Fai’s touch as he traced a too-perfect jawline. He’d seen it on Syaoran’s tablet of course, but seeing the real thing, in three dimensional space,  _ touching _ it... That was different.  

The surface of the plastic (and there was something so familiar about the feel that he just couldn’t  _ quite _ put his finger on) was textured, making the otherwise clear material take the light and twist it in unexpected ways. The overall effect made the false skin like a haze, obscuring all but the most surface level mechanisms of this armature. They faded into view around the corner of his eyes, his temples and the back of his jaw.

Fai stepped forward, unable to resist as his hand came to rest flat against the cheek, testing the give of it, feeling the shape of that plane against his palm.

It was perfect.

Except that it wasn’t.

Syaoran had the data to prove it. Trial after trial of test subjects reporting unease with the android’s appearance, every critique so very frustratingly and unhelpfully vague: “I mean, he doesn’t look  _ bad _ .” “He’s not very friendly.” “It feels like he’s mad at me.”  

“It’s alright.” Fai said, letting the hand trace down a neck and pat the droid on the shoulder. “I like you even if you do look a little grumpy.”

Was it the eyebrows maybe? The shape was there already but a darker shade might distract from the way a hollow in the machinery was casting a shadow just under the inside edge of the false brow bone, giving the impression of a slight furrow

Or was something about the jaw? An angle a few degrees off somewhere making it look the tiniest bit… clenched?

Fai stepped back, his hands folding in front of his chest, head tilting to the side and lips slightly pursed, wondering how exactly to treat a case of robotic resting bitch face.

 

* * *

 

 

It wasn’t like Doumeki didn’t have plenty of time to make it to the airport, but Syaoran couldn’t help but feel like the quiet little half frowns and pointed looks were his version of shoving him out of the car.

“Thanks again.” Syaoran said, feet hitting the pavement.

“Any ti-” Then Doumeki paused, hand already on the gearshift. “Hey.” He said, half frown turning into a real one as he looked past Syaoran’s head. “Isn’t that-”

“Syaoran?”

“Dad?”

They looked at each other from across the empty parking spaces.

“What are you doing here?” Seishiro asked, politely curious.

“Um…”

“The library.” Doumeki prompted quietly from the driver's seat. “You came to study at the library.”

“I was going to the library.” Syaoran recovered clumsily. “What are  _ you _ doing here?”

“Inventory.” It was a new voice coming from the back door of the Li family van. Syaoran did a double take as Subaru climbed out, only to hoist a large plastic tub into his arms, resting it a little awkwardly against his knee.

 

Oh.

 

Seishiro’s grad student was nice enough if a little boring. He felt bad his dad was making him work on what was contractually supposed to be a vacation day.

 

Doumeki’s voice came again, “Ask him to help you study.”

 

“Hey, do you think you could-“ Syaoran turned back into the car as the words caught up with his brain. “Wait, what? Why?”

 

“Just do it.” Doumeki snapped, undoing his seatbelt and starting to get out of the car.

 

“Sorry, Subaru, do you think you could help me with something today?” Syaoran approached with his best straight face as Doumeki caught up, heading for the open back door.

 

“Sure!” Subaru offered with a smile, nodding his thanks as Doumeki picked up another tub. “What with?”

 

“He’s struggling with his robot’s motion planning.” Doumeki answered for him before he could be caught in a worse lie. “You have experience with that kind of physiology, right?”

 

“Syaoran,” Subaru looked a little confused. “We’ve got more resources on that sort of thing in the lab than the library probably does. Why don’t you just come and join us? With an extra set of hands, inventory shouldn’t even take very long.”

 

“Thanks!” Syaoran was doing his best to catch any sort of explanation from Doumeki but he just had eyes for his dad. Glaring, suspicious eyes. The Hell?

 

He looked over his shoulder and- Oh.

 

“Dad.” He said. “Um… you’re not supposed to… you know.” He nodded at the cigarette in his hand. Seishiro had that aggressive poker face he always did when he was smoking. The new campus wide ban had gone into effect only earlier that year.

“Hmm?” Seishiro looked down at his hand like he was surprised to find it occupied. “Sorry,” He said, grinning politely again, throwing the butt to the ground and grinding it under a leather sole. “Old habits die hard. You really don’t need to help, Syaoran. We can handle it.”

“No it’s alright.” He said, and it sort of was. He’d rather be at home catching up on sleep during his first day of vacation, but he didn’t mind. “I mean otherwise it’s just going to be the two of you cooped up together alone in a supply closet all day, right? That doesn’t sound fun.”

Seishiro smiled a little tightly, pulling the back door shut as Syaoran took the third and final tub into his arms. “Sounds terrible.”

 

* * *

 

 

As much as the android was a pillar of perfection - and he was, as Fai had very much enjoyed taking off the rest of those coverings - there were still some things to be desired.

For instance, if persocoms were going to take off, they really needed to fix the ‘hole in the side of the head’ problem. More than a little creeped out, Fai pulled and the wire unspooled from somewhere in the machine’s skull.

‘Ears!!’ Fai wrote on his notes for Syaoran with two exclamation points, then went back and added a third for good measure. It joined the other note that read, ‘Its dick reminds me of the squishy glitter tubes they used to make when I was a kid. Are you old enough to remember those? lmao’

The problem of the face was still niggling at him, but no obvious answer had presented itself. Maybe it was just  _ too _ perfect? Some part of the human consciousness rejecting what was too good to be true. Or maybe just plain resenting it? It was hard to fathom the root of the discomfort when he himself wasn’t really feeling it.

As he waited for his machines to run a preliminary virus scan (you never knew) Fai cut away idly at a red solo cup until he had two decent dog ears. He held them out the window (too lazy to actually go downstairs) to give them a quick coat of black spraypaint.  With a plastic safe adhesive, he stuck the handmade ears over the open port to either side of its head.

There. Much better.

A chime sounded as the machine’s code opened in a window on one of Fai’s monitors. This wasn’t really what Syaoran had asked of him, but he had to let him have a little fun, right? He spent some time poking around. Some comments made things a little easier to follow.

“Black Steel?” Fai murmured to himself as he found the machine’s moniker. He glanced back to it. “With a face like that? No, I don’t think so.” Smiling to himself, he quickly refactored ‘Black’ to ‘Blue’.

“Well,” He asked the machine, stomach doing a little flip of anticipation. “Shall we get acquainted?”

With the press of the enter key, motors wooshed to life, running softly as lights came on under the robot’s skin. A text box came up warning him about the missing arm and Fai hit ‘continue anyway’. Pistons in its neck moved visibly as his head raised. Finally his eyes slipped open, a raw, glowing red as the iris filters had not yet been installed.

“That is… unsettling.”

Next the machine’s head turned one hundred and eighty degrees, scanning the room from one side to the other. Fai stepped back as it turned precisely around and repeated the process. Then it took exactly the same motion to turn back to Fai, the cord winding around him once in the process and knocking one of his speakers, a few papers and some empty energy drink cans to the floor.

“Woah! Woah… easy there.”

Fai carefully unwrapped the cord over his head and set his desk back to rights.

The blank face scanned the room again slowly, then seemed to double back and stare at Fai. It went on just a little too long and then, “You have activated the program known as Blue Steel. Please enter your name and create an account.”

The robot didn’t speak.It was simply a recording that played while it continued to stare at him.  

“You’re kidding right?”

“You have activated the program known as Blue Steel. Please enter your name and create an account.”

A glance at the monitor showed what the robot was referring to. A short survey. Name. Date of Birth. Email. A list of health conditions he had to claim he didn’t have. At the end a block of Terms and Conditions he didn’t bother reading.

“You have entered an invalid email address.”

Ok, apparently key smashing wasn’t going to cut it. Fai entered a burner address and used his phone to authorize the account.

This time the face moved, lips working in almost perfect synchronization and eyelids falling to a neutral expression. “Hello, Idiot. Welcome to your Blue Steel trial. How may I serve you?”

Fai’s mouth fell open a little before he managed to pull it together again. The speech was machine produced, but smooth and low if slightly reverb-y for some reason. The movement of its lips wasn’t quite on, but it was the best he’d seen in real life. “Trial? Do you mean that in the commercial way or the science way? You’re not going to get me worked up and then ask me for my credit card information, are you?”

There was a slight pause. “I’m sorry, Idiot. I didn’t quite catch that. How may I serve you?”

Fai didn’t like to use his name for things like this, first for the obvious reason but second because they never quite got the pronunciation right. He could have written something better than ‘Idiot” though if he’d have realized how much it was going to be used.

“Um… is there an options menu?”

The next two minutes were filled with a surprisingly extensive list of very high brow words for some very carnal activities. And yet somehow the most intriguing of all was-

“What the hell does robot flirting look like?”

As soon as Fai finished saying it, the droid took a step forward, lifting the hand he did have to run through Fai’s hair, pushing his bangs away. He winced in anticipation of pulled hair, caught between the rubberized pads of artificial digits, but they passed through harmlessly instead. Then the hand ran down his jaw and held his chin up a little.

“I love the color of your eyes in the sun. I think it’s my favorite shade of blue.”

Fai stared up into glowing red eyes, a little shocked at the sophistication. It wasn’t perfect though. He glanced at the florescent light that buzzed away at the ceiling of his studio apartment. “We’re not in the sun, Blue Steel, but nice work on the internal clock.”

The rubber pad of the droids thumb moved lightly over his chin. “I’m sorry, Idiot. I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Kiss me?”

The droid leaned it and it was all… surprisingly natural, really. He stood close, but not crowding, thumb on his chin leading Fai up until lips of skin met lips of whatever advanced plastic his makers had used. It was soft, a little cool against his mouth. Fai didn’t press in but he didn’t pull away either. Shifting the tiniest bit, he felt the almost fuzzy texture of his artificial skin. Only when the pressure pulled away did Fai realize he’d closed his eyes. The reality of the situation returned with the harsh lighting from above and those glowing red eyes.

Fai’s hand caught on the wrist of metal, plastic casing and silicone. He swallowed and bit his lip. He had to make a choice. He could pull away. Write up his report for Syaoran. Move on to actual work that  _ paid _ . Or…

Well, when was he going to get another chance like this?

He pulled down on the hand. After a moment of resistance, if followed easily enough. Fai guided the strange fingertips down along his windpipe. Down to press the hand flat against his shoulder, his own fingers twining between the robotic.

“Why don’t you show me kissing phase two?”

This time when the robot leaned in Fai was there to meet him, body pressing flush against metal and plastic casing, mouth falling open. The hand at his shoulder ran along his neck and came to tangle in the hair at the back of Fai’s head, pulling firmly.

“Fuck!” Fai gasped into the kiss at the feeling.

The droid pulled away slightly. “You have requested intercourse. Please confirm.”

Fai laughed, bright and surprised. So the droid  _ did  _ know bad words. “No. Cancel command.” He ran a hand down an aluminum plated side, settling low on robotic hips. He backed against  his desk, pulling all the time, a metallic thigh coming to rest very nicely against the denim between his legs. “What kind of sexbot are you if you can’t appreciate the importance of foreplay?”

“You have requested foreplay. Please confirm.”

He blinked. Then smiled. Yes, he’d walked right into that one. Fai couldn’t help his excited little grin as he laid a hand to either side of the droid’s impossibly chiseled jawline. He placed the smallest of kisses to that nose before pulling away. “Command confirmed.”

The hand wrapped around his waist and before he had time to react, Fai was hoisted up to sit on the edge of his desk. The droid pulled his knee back so their hips were flush as artificial teeth dragged down his neck. He groaned, tilting his head away to give him more room as his hands went back to support the way he was arching into him. Unfortunately his hand hit the keyboard with a clatter.

“Wait! Wa- Ahhh! Wait…”

The droid paused then pulled away. “Are you in distress?”

“No!” Fai swallowed, squirming a little in his suddenly too tight jeans. “I just…” He turned to make sure his keysmash hadn’t done anything to the programing. He found the right paper and jotted a quick ‘the teeth might be ok as is’ amendment for Syaoran to read later. “We should move this to the bed. The desk is a bad idea.”

The droid stepped back and  _ again  _ knocked things off his desk as it pulled the cord. “Stop. Let me just…” With an impatient bounce to his knee, Fai closed out the programing in a hurry, then disconnected the wire altogether, guiding it as it spooled back into the android’s head. “There! Officially untethered.”

The red eyes looked at him for a moment, unmoving.

“I’m sorry, Idiot. I didn’t quite catch that. How may I serve you?”

“Bed. Now. Foreplay.”

Another pause.

“You have selected foreplay. Please-”

“Yes!” Fai interrupted shooing him towards the bed. “Command confirmed. You don’t have to keep asking every time!”

Fai hit the switch on the wall and the overhead lights died away. It was never really dark in Fai’s room. The monitor was casting a cool blue hue over the messy bed and small piles of clothes and trash as yet to be thrown away. But that was background really. The thing that really shocked the eye was how an improbable number of LEDs that blinked into the darkness of the room. Greens, reds, blues and whites. Each one reminding Fai he was never really alone here amidst his tools and creations.

Least of all now.

The spots of light formed constellations that flowed across the reflective metal parts of the droid’s body as Fai approached. Even more captivating was how he shone from within, a scattered yet uneven glow from various indicators and a deep orange that spread through his entire chest that Fai was suspicious might have something to do with heat distribution.

Not that he’d be finding out tonight.

For once the robot would be taking  _ him  _ apart.

“Comfortable?” He asked as he settled on to the bed.

“These conditions are conducive to my programing.”  

He came close, lips hovering near to the droid’s, a hand to the side of his head. Unseen, half lidded red eyes made his face glow crimson in the darkness. “What was your fancy phrase for ‘make out?’ again?”

“You have requested kissing while intimately embraced. Please confirm.”

“Confirmed.” Fai said, leaning back and taking the android with him.

Both on their sides, Fai watched the machine watching him, his hand a shadow as it blocked out the glow in his chest and side. Like any machine, any string of code, there was a person behind Blue Steel somewhere and Fai wondered what they must be like. “You’re more sophisticated than I had expected you to be.”

The android moved a little closer, a hand running up Fai’s arm, back towards his shoulder, coming to trace along the curves of his face, his cheek bone, his jaw. Fai turned into the touch to kiss rubberized fingertips.

“Thank you, Idiot.”

Fai groaned. “And in some ways not.”

“You are dissatisfied?” The bot’s touch caught on his lower lip.

“Not at all.” Fai closed the distance between them, then slowly coaxed the droid to settle on top of him. It was a heavy weight, heavier than flesh and blood, on his chest and stomach, between his legs.

It felt strange. It felt wrong. The machine caught Fai’s tongue in a hint of a bite and it felt so,  _ so _ good.

“Mmmm!” Fai rolled his hips, the pressure keeping him pinned to the bed. His thighs opened to it, coming up to hold his partner. The hand wrapped around, cradling the back of Fai’s skull, adjusting his angle and probing deeper, rubber tongue working against Fai’s own as he moaned. He let himself work up to it slowly, hips thrusting a little harder, a little faster each time, all the while the droid plundered his mouth, licked away his gasps and groans.

“Please!” Fai finally broke, pulling his head back and away. “Please fuck me.”

“You have requested receiving penetrative intercourse. Please confirm.”

“Yes! Command confirmed!” Fai whined. “Hurry. I’m close.”

The machine pulled away, finding one of Fai’s hands with his own taking it to sit over his would-be heart, some points of metal set into his chest warm compared to the plastic surrounding it. “Please give explicit consent.”

“Yes! Fuck me. I want you in me, please!”

The machine watched him for a moment. “Lie detection failed. Consent not accepted.”

Fai’s eyes widened. “I have to pass a fucking lie detector test!? Of course I’ll fail. My heart is pounding! It’s a false positive, just  _ fuck  _ me!”

The machine blinked at him.

“I’m sorry, Idiot. I didn’t quite catch that. How may I serve you?”

Fai screamed his frustration and the bot retreated.

“Are you in distress?”

Fai sat up shakily. “Fuck you.”

“You have requested giving penetrative intercourse. Please confirm.”

Fai blinked at him. “Wait, really? That was an option? Why didn’t you say so?”

“You have requested the options menu. Position options include: Missionary, Cowgirl, Reverse Cow-”

“Doggy Style!” Fai said, not bothering with listening through. As the android turned, climbing on to hand and knees, Fai laughed a little hysterically. “Are you shitting me?” He said in awe.

“You have requested-”

“No!” Fai quickly corrected. “Whatever you’re about to say, no.”

He approached carefully, hands trailing up the panels of his thighs, laying a kiss to his lower back. So many people would someday going to be in this position, Fai thought. And what would they going to do? Close their eyes and press their foreheads to false flesh? Think of someone else as they lost themselves to seductive fantasy of it all? Think of some unattainable other that due to distance, disinterest or whatever other cruel twist of fate would have this machine deemed ‘close enough’?

As far as Fai was concerned, they would be be missing the point, taking a miracle of engineering for granted. He found people tended to think of machines as blank canvases and pure mathematics, but what technology, from the shortest line of code to the tallest buildings, wasn’t lovingly crafted by some creator somewhere? The signature of such a craftsman was all over this robot; You just had to know how to see it.

“So how does this work?” He asked, middle finger questing shyly along where on a human, he’d be between two cheeks. He came to a rubberized membrane, soft, pliant and radiating a gentle heat. With heart pounding and feeling like he was about to do something unbearably kinky, he pushed his fingertip into the hole. When it slid easily enough, he pushed slowly up till the pressure hugged him up to the knuckle, feeling something give behind the membrane. “Should I use my own oil or do-”

Fai fell to apprehensive silence as first the lights in the android died all at once.

Then there was a scream.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

> find ~/Android_v01/ -type f -exec \ sed -i ‘s/Black Steel/Blue Steel/’ {} +

> make

* * *

 

Black Steel’s disappearance wasn’t an exciting thing. At least not at first. There were no masked robbers. No broken glass. It was instead just  a passing annoyance that someone had kept him out that long without reserving time on the schedule. So calls were put out, checking with each of the Primary Investigators, and no, they weren’t using him, but they couldn’t figure out who and  _ wasn’t that just odd? _

The panic mounted slowly. It wasn't unheard of for one of the team to take him around the building for testing, but never without at least logging their location. Their tracking system, faulty at the best of times, hadn’t actually been online since the day before. They couldn’t figure out who had been the last person to see him. And almost every undergrad was scattered to the wind for spring break, most of them not answering their phones, presumably still mid transit or just afraid they’d be given work to do over the holiday if they picked up. The disappearance couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Every senior researcher was now assembled making the terrible decision whether or not to report it. Of course police involvement would help find him faster, but what were the chances of getting renewed funding if word got out that they couldn’t even keep an eye on their most valuable project?

Kurogane wasn’t exactly known for his friendly demeanor. It wasn’t weird that he’d be fuming in the corner of the lab, staring angrily at some piece of code or cursing the laws of physics. To the point that it wasn’t until the pencil snapped in his hand that anyone really gave him any notice.

In fact the whole lab fell to silence.

He looked in shock first to his own hand, then to the faces watching him carefully. He grit through the embarrassment.

“I’m fine.”

Everyone was stressed, obviously. The theft of their prototype was easily millions of dollars just in materials. Not to mention three separate theses and tens of papers that would make or break careers. As time went on, researchers had been added to and taken away from the roster of their office, and they each had a small mark on the bot, a section of code here, a newly engineered component piece there. But none of them really ‘owned’ it like Kurogane did. It was apart of him now. Maybe not on paper and certainly not in court, but it had grown out of project he’d started years ago back when he’d entered the lab as a high school intern, exchanging free labor and grunt work for the chance to play around with prosthetics and nerve-electrode interfacing.  

As a sort of silent consensus, everyone in the lab subtly pushed the Soel prototype in Kurogane’s direction. It was a simple machine from last year when they were testing out the new rubberized elastic polymer skin options. It was more proof of concept than anything else, a sort of bouncy ball with a face, ears and short little limbs, but it was kind of cute and occasionally having it around seemed to calm Kurogane down.

They all watched out of the corner of eyes or through reflection as it made the precarious treck, using a chair and then a table to climb up, feet flapping as her arms levered her higher, eventually perching on the edge of Kurogane’s desk.

“Good Afternoon Kurogane! How are- Waaaah!” The tiny voice yelled as it was swatted off the edge of his desk and bounced a few times before coming to a stop and starting to right itself again. “Whoops!”

So apparently it wasn’t calming him now.

He stood up with a scrape of chair against tiles, folding his laptop and tucking it beneath his elbow.

“I’ll be in the VR lab if anyone needs me.” The growl in his voice said that they better not.

 

* * *

 

 

 

_ Dr. Li, There were a few items I couldn’t identify. Please advise.  _

 

_ Shelf 7B _

_ Small rodent skeletal samples (12) _

_ Fetal development cast -mouse -acrylic _

_ Taxidermied Hawk -heavily damaged _

~~_ A tub of Garbanzo beans (???) _ ~~ Fruit bat brains (~50)

_ Housecat skeleton _

_ Mold of avian circulatory system _

~~_ The brown things in the tub at the bottom (rope??) _ ~~  Preserved spinal cords- Human (7)

 

Subaru, 

Corrections made. Please update the database.

                                                -S

 

* * *

 

 

The fresh air of the campus lawn was a brief and heavenly respite between the formaldehyde of his dad’s lab and the asphalt/gasoline smell of the parking lot. Syaoran crawled into the passenger seat as Seishiro started the engine. It was only when he put his backpack on his lap that he realized he phone was vibrating. With a quick glance at caller ID to make sure it wasn’t Kurogane, he answered.    

“-if you don’t pick up the phone right now, I swear to God, you are never going to-”

“Fai?”

“Oh thank you!”

He didn’t sound right. Was he… crying?

“Dude, are you ok?”

“No! I am-“ Fai collected himself. “There’s been bit of a medical emergency and I can’t move. Could you please come help me?”

“Ok, first off, holy shit! Secondly, can’t move? Like, really can’t move, because I don’t have a key to your house.”

At a red light Seishiro gave him a pointed look, waiting for him to elaborate, but he just shrugged a little helplessly as he tried to get more information.

“Then break down the door!” Fai whined. “Please just… come over?”

“What happened?”

On the other end, Fai groaned. “I don’t know. I was testing your robot. Stuff was going well. Then all the sudden his eyes go dark and now I’m kind of stuck.”

“Stuck…? I just asked you to look at him, Fai. Tell me you didn’t…” It was hard enough for him to say it in the first place. There wasn’t a chance of it happening while sitting next to his dad.

“Whatever you’re thinking, I probably did, but your robot is broken and now I’m stuck and please come fix this before I pass out from pain. He’s frozen or glitched out or something.”

He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. But… “Have you tried turning him off and on again?”

There was an indignant gasp on the other side of the line, then a sharp “Fuck you, Syaoran!”

Worth it. So worth it. His dad was shaking his head, but smiling. “Ok, first of all, it’s not broken. You just found the manual override switch.”

There was silence over the phone for a moment.

“Why  _ the fuck _ would you put an off switch there on a sex bot!?”

Syaoran switched to the other ear, hoping that there was enough street noise that the sound hadn’t carried. “Ok, I’ll be over, ok? Just stay put.”

“Yeah, like I’m about to go anywhere like this.” Fai snapped sarcastically.

Syaoran gestured for understanding, even if it was useless over the phone. “I’ll be there soon as I can!”

Fai hung up on him.

“Hey, Dad…”

“Fai’s house, right?” He was already signaling a lane change in that direction.

“You don’t have to come. I know you had a busy morning.”

But he shrugged it off. “It sounds like he needs help.”

“I don’t have a spare key or anything.”

Seishiro shook his head a little. “He’s got cheap windows. This’ll be easy.”

“Oh.” His dad always had such weird, unexpected skills. “Well, thanks then.”

They rode for a few minutes in near silence except for the occasional turn signal and another Primara song playing quietly over the radio.

Then, apropos nothing, “So you gave Fai a sex robot?”

Syaoran froze where he sat, gut icy and cheeks burning at the same time.

“You heard that?” He asked, voice tight.

“He was yelling pretty loudly.” Seishiro seemed a little put out, but not in a way that made any sense to Syaoran.

“It’s a school thing. He’s taking a look at it for me.”  

Seishiro nodded, waiting for a car to pass before making a left hand turn.

“Do you think that’s why he stopped texting me back?”

“Oh my God! Dad!”

 

* * *

 

 

Fai almost fainted when the mechanism disengaged and his hand slipped free to reveal a purple and angry knuckle. A wave of nausea hit him as he saw the tip of his finger pointing the wrong direction.

“It’s broken!”

Seishiro kneeled at Fai’s knees, carefully turning his hand one way, then the other. “It’s not broken.” Fai would be dying of embarrassment if he wasn’t busy just dying generally. “It’s dislocated.”

“Am I going to be able to type?”

“You’ll be fine. A few weeks with it splinted maybe. I’ll have to set it though.”

Fai turned a shade paler, if that was even possible. “But I have jobs to do! Deadlines. I can’t-” He looked wide-eyed at Syaoran. “I hold you responsible. This is entirely your fault. I hope you feel terrible.”

He did, somewhere under the embarrassment, but, “I’m not the one sticking my fingers where they don’t belong.”

“Don’t belong!?” Physical agony was making Fai more openly furious than he otherwise might have been. “What did you expect to happen when you gave your gay friend a gay robot and told him to go be gay with it?”

“Well I didn’t think  _ this _ would happen.” Syaoran shoved his hands at Fai. “How was I supposed to know? You don’t even look like a top!”

Fai’s eye twitched as he stared in disbelief. “That’s not how it works!”

“Are you ready?” Seishiro interrupted, calm voice cutting through the yelling with ease. Fai swallowed and nodded, eyes resolutely on the floor. Seishiro moved his grip, one hand around Fai’s palm, the other firmly on the fingertip. “On three: One. Two.”

“MOTHERFUCKING SHIT FUCK!”

“Three. And there we go.”

Fai took a sucking breath in. “You lied.” He said weakly, still in shock. “You went on two.”

Seishiro smiled up at him a little too brightly. “Apologies.” The Li family was historically somewhat prone to injury and Seishiro had taken to keeping a first aid kit in their car. It was with these supplies that he splinted Fai’s purple, painful, but now straightened finger. “This should be fine for now, but you might want to have a doctor look at it.”

“I thought you were a doctor.”

“Yes, but I mean a  _ real _ doctor.” Fai opened his mouth as if to speak but he kept talking. “Syaoran, why don’t you help Fai get settled and I’ll meet you back down at the car?” They both knew him well enough to know this was his somewhat polite way of saying he needed a cigarette and the conversation was over.

The door clicked shut and Syaoran sat down heavily next to Fai on the bed.

“So I guess my dad knows I work on sex bots now.”

“Yep.” Fai didn’t move from where he was staring at his finger.

“That probably makes us even.”

“Nope.”  

Syaoran glanced over at him, then back down. “We have to sneak him back into the lab.”

Fai closed his eyes, took a steadying breath through his nose, then opened them again. “What?”

Syaoran laid back on the bed, staring up blankly at the ceiling. “I have about ten voicemails about Black Steel going missing. Everyone is starting to panic.”

Fai turned to stare down at him. “I thought you had a plan, Syaoran.” His voice was a very deliberately measured. “Please don’t tell me there is a million dollar robot in my room, and you don’t have a plan.”

“I mean it’s vacation, right? What are they even still doing at work?”

“Professors don’t-“ Fai’s eyes widened. “How many years have I known you? And in that time how many Spring Breaks has your father  _ not _ spent working?”

“Yeah but that’s different. He has to go in or else all the class pets would die.”

“No, Syaoran,” Fai said miserably, joining him on the mattress. “They’re all like that.”

They both stared into the fluorescent light buzzing overhead.

“Can’t you just tell them you have him?”

Syaoran shook his head. “If I was lucky I’d just get fired. I’d probably be black-listed from working in any lab again. I might even be expelled.”

Fai cringed, turning to watch his profile. “You think they would do that?

Syaoran caught his eye. “Wouldn’t you?”

He sighed. “Then what’s our plan?”

Syaoran spoke in low tones, trying to soften what he knew was going to be a pretty big blow. “It can’t be me. You’re anonymous but I’m not. You’ll have to do it alone.” He looked over but it seemed like Fai had already reasoned this one out. He appreciated not having to argue the point. “There are security cameras outside, but honestly if you wear a hood you should be fine. Our security… It’s not what it should be. Some of the specialty labs have harder locks but as long as you get him inside the building that should be good enough. They might assume he wandered into a corner on his own or something. There is a digital security lock on every entry, but I mean you’re used to hacking that sort of thing right?”

Fai sat up suddenly, holding up an imperfect shooshing gesture with the way his middle finger couldn’t bend out of the way. “Ix-nay on the acking-hay.” He said, nodding back to where Black Steel had been pushed to the corner of the bed, still locked in his somewhat undignified posture. “You never know who might be listening.”

Syaoran raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Fai. It’s powered down. I think you’re safe, dude.”

But Fai just tsked. “Oh you sweet Summer child.”

He wasn’t convinced but he let the subject drop. “Sorry about your finger. We’re still cool, right?”

Fai glanced away with a sigh. “Yeah, we’re still cool. But how am I supposed to lug this guy around with a hurt hand?”

Or at all? Syaoran thought to himself. Fai’s physical strength… well you’d have to be pretty charitable to fathom him capable.

“Doumeki’s out of town already. I’d rather not get Dad or our license plate involved. I suppose we could just power him back up? I mean he can walk, right? You can have him follow you.”

Fai glanced at his closet. “You might need to help me find clothes to camouflage him. Mine would be too small. But I suppose that’s not the worst idea. How do we turn him back on?”

“The same way you turned him off.”

Fai stared at him blankly.

“You’re kidding me.” But when Syaoran shifted on the bed, crawling towards that robotic backside, his tone grew a little more urgent. “Wait! But, are you sure that’s safe?”

Syaoran had the gall to smile a little pityingly over his shoulder as he worked a finger in. “It’s perfectly safe, Fai. You just have to know what you’re doing and go slow.”

As the lights on Black Steel sprang back to life, Fai smiled a little tightly, swallowing down the bitter irony without retort.


	3. Chapter 3

Self Orienting Elasticized Locomotion

~~~~~~

the latest endeavor of the M.O.K.O.N.A. project

 

* * *

 

Kurogane was a fan of the VR chamber.

It wasn’t the wall to wall room of screens the name implied, as cool as that would have been, but this wasn’t MIT either. What could you do?

No, this was something a bit more modest. A dedicated room that was always carefully cleared out except for the tracers, trackers, and various goggle prototypes set neatly in place on the shelves. It might not look like much, but it was quiet and calm, a nice haven from work and algorithms and interns.

And as long as he had the goggles on, he could be anywhere.

Like how right now he was in a temple, low poly grass blowing in the breeze outside while an impossible fountain poured water over floating stones.

Kurogane breathed in slowly, then out again, eyes falling on the crossed knees of his avatar that, as he was in reality, was sitting up straight on the middle of the floor. It was a full twenty minutes before he felt calm enough to consider checking on the status of his droid.

Pressing his palms together, then twisting and pulling them back forming a rectangle between thumbs and index fingers, he called up a task window that floated before him. On this one he pulled up a (finally restored) feed from Black Steel. He was still trapped in the apartment with the idiot blonde and of all people, it was the kid with him.

He was furious of course. He’d trusted Syaoran.

But there was just something pitiful about him as he helped the blonde prepare.

Who now had a finger brace on, he noted with a little more satisfaction than his therapist would probably approve of.

He pushed the window to the side, sliding it down to mute, almost out of his field of vision.

Ok, feelings aside, he didn’t exactly trust Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum to get his droid back in one piece. It was time to do something proactive. Twisting his hands again, he made a few more windows: In one he activated the droid’s secret tracker. There was another to stream the security cams from each outer door. A final one he used to pull up a menu, while simultaneously activating a weighted controller that sat heavy in his hand. In the real world, it was a tube with a carefully crafted weight on the end. In the temple it was Kurogane’s favorite katana.

He practiced his kata as he waited for the moment he’d need to take over.

Which, it turned out, took a surprisingly long time. He watched in bafflement as the robot was clothed, hoodie pulled up and given a standard mask against coughing. They took the buss of all things.

It wasn’t like Black Steel was looking around much, instructed to keep to himself, still it was shocking the way that people just ignored him, an actual walking full sized android, when Kurogane himself usually couldn’t even have that luxury.

But the time did come that they left the buss and the press of people. Fai walked the long way back way to the lab, through the overhanging trees, probably in an attempt to avoid any passerbys. Well, he’d succeeded. Especially with how deserted Spring Break had left the campus. He also gave Kurogane the perfect opening.

The next thing Kurogane did was take off the goggles for a moment to detach his right arm and store it safely in the shelving. If Black Steel was going without, then so would he. He slipped the goggles back over his eyes, the temple scene still waiting for him. In his left hand he pinched the corner of the feed from Black Steel. With a flick of the wrist it expanded, lagging slightly as the image became immersive, the reality of the scene broken only by his slightly narrowed field of view and the tracking data still hovering at his side. He tapped his thumb to his middle finger twice and a text box appeared in his open palm. He flipped it and a virtual keyboard hovered just below. With a few short commands, he activated manual control.

 

* * *

 

 

The hand caught Fai’s wrist and pushed him flush against the tree, before coming back up over his mouth, stifling any cry for help. Red, glowing eyes bored into him as he tried not to hyperventilate.

“Not a word.” Blue Steel said lowly, his mouth movement off slightly in a way it hadn’t been before. “You understand me?”

Fai couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything for shock.

“I’m going to take my hand away and you’re not going to scream. Nod so I know you understand.”

Fai very carefully nodded, blue eyes wide and more than a little terrified. True to his word, Blue Steel’s hand eased away, though the weight pinning him to the tree didn’t.

Fai’s hoarse whisper tumbled out before he could stop himself. “I’m almost certain you’re breaking The First Law of Robotics right now.”

The droid’s head frowned down at him. “What the- Don’t be stupid. Those aren’t real.”

“Well that’s not comforting at all.”

“Tch! I’m not the robot, Idiot. I’m just… driving him.”

Fai’s eyes narrowed as he pressed himself even more against the tree, a useless bid to put some distance between them. “Since when?”

Blue Steel shifted a little in confusion. “Since now?”

“So you didn’t see…” Fai’s apartment. The less than legal things on his shelves. Syaoran’s involvement. Fai’s particularly private encounter with the robot earlier that day.

“I mean, I missed the part where your finger broke, though I can guess how it happened.”

Fai felt embarrassment twist cold and heavy in his gut. “That’s horrifying!”

The droid stepped in, looming over Fai. “What’s horrifying is that today my life’s work got stolen by a kid that I thought I could trust and then given to his friend who tried to fuck it.”

Fai looked up a little wretchedly. It sounded bad when he put it like that. “Look, I’m sorry. But I think it’s safe to say we both- Wait.” Fai’s mouth dropped open into a scowl. “You were watching!”

“Yeah, I already said-“

“You were watching and you could have overridden the controls, but you _let_ it break my finger, you ASS!”

Fai shoved back against the robotic chest. It was heavy, but Kurogane wasn’t expecting it so he didn’t have time to counter. The machine’s own back up systems kept him from falling over, but the change in perspective was still enough to flip his stomach with the first tinges of motion sickness.

When Kurogane got his bearings again, Fai was still there, braced against the tree and glaring.

“I’m the ass? You tried to fuck my robot!”

“It’s. A. Sexbot!” Fai hissed. “Why did you even make a sexbot, if you didn’t want people sleeping with it? I’m sorry, but this is _not_ my fault.”

Blue Steel squared up to Fai again. His chest shifted as if he, or at least the person controlling his movements, was taking a deep breath. Then he turned on his heel and started back on the path. For a moment Fai just watched and then-

“Wait!” He called, jogging to catch up before falling into steep beside him. It was an annoyingly brisk pace.

“You wanted to get the robot here, right? Well you did. You can go home now. I don’t need you.”

It wasn’t a terrible idea. In fact it was probably the only sane idea. But…

“What about Syaoran?”

“He might want to start considering alternate career options.”

Fai stopped to gape at him, once again falling behind. “You can’t!” He kept trying to block the path but he was easy enough to brush aside. “He was just trying to help! He loves this job more than anything. He never stops talking about it. Please.” As they lost the tree cover and approached the building, specifically a back entry way he’d never really noticed before, Fai kept it down, walking normally so as to not attract unwanted attention. “A kiss for luck...” He murmured to himself, putting an old student ID to his mouth and then pressing it into the door frame...

“Are you trying to card the lock?  You know they stopped making doors that works on in like... 1990.”

There was enough derision there to make Fai pause. “Yes?” He hazarded.

“Or we could just…” Blue Steel held up his arm and a barcode showed up, glowing through the thin skin of his wrist.

Fai stepped out of the way so he could scan in. “You didn’t tell me you had a key.” He chided as the deadbolt clicked back and they moved inside.  

“Are you still here?” The droid asked him as they walked down a hallway, doors labeled with presumptive codenames. (Unless the EECS department actually needed rooms for things like ‘feathers’, ‘demons’ and ‘peaches’.)

“Until you promise not to fire Syaoran, yes.”

“You can’t be in here.”

“Because why?”

“Unauthorized Personnel.” An alert sounded from down the hall where a security droid, leagues less sophisticated than Blue Steel was passing by.

“Because that.”

Fai backed up, retreating for the door, but a similar droid had just appeared down the other side of the hallway. Fai laughed awkwardly as his discomfort grew and more of the security droids collected, programmed to be curious when another deviated from the normal patterns.

All of them were approaching, forming a loose perimeter at both exit points, except for the first that was still. Eventually though, it started walking forward, coming to stand before Blue Steel.

“Black Steel identified. Please confirm.”

“Oh Hell. That’s not a good idea right now.” Blue Steel frowned.

“It’s alright. You aren’t Black Steel anymore, remember?” Fai didn’t give him time to figure it out. “Blue Steel, please report your identification.”

Kurogane was driving but the background systems responsible for basic function were still running. It was one of these that answered, “Identification: Blue Steel. Tracking number 395-.”

“Yes that’s enough!” Fai shushed him. “See? Blue Steel. Not Black Steel. Easy mistake to make, I know, but it happens. Ok, you can all go back to patrol now.” None of the security droids moved, but they didn’t advance or call for reinforcements either. “Seriously, go back to work. ‘This is not the droid you’re looking for.’” Fai said it with the requisite hand wave.

Blue Steel’s motors whirred softly as he tilted his head looking at Fai over his shoulder.

“Are you trying to Captain Kirk these guys?”

“That was obviously an Obi-Wan quote.” He answered lowly, with dwindling hope, then with mild distaste, “Wait, are you a trekkie?”

The droid ignored him and shook his head. “Well, tough luck. They’re too stupid to outsmart. We’ll have to get tactile.”

“Are you about to break out the Kirk Fu?” Fai hissed, feeling more and more unacknowledged panic as the security drones tightened ranks.

Blue Steel snapped off a heretofore innocuous looking section of plating from his thigh. There was a hinge halfway down that rotated, and with a flick of the wrist, it snapped into place forming one long metallic length. He brandished it like a sword.

“I was always more of a Sulu guy.”

Blue Steel moved suddenly, catching the first droid around an ankle and pulling until it crashed to the floor. It’s limbs started moving uselessly in the air like a turtle caught on his back. “There’s a glitch with these guys.” Or maybe just lazy programming. Whatever. It wasn’t his project. “They ended up way too top heavy and bad at recovering. After a minute of not being able to stand they force restart with a righting mechanism.”

“So that gives us a head start?” Fai said, getting ready to run and watching nervously as the later droids came closer to inspect what had happened to the first.

“Even better. Their temporary memory files will get wiped and they’ll forget we were ever here.”

Fai watched, hugging the wall as Blue Steel knocked another pair off balance. Even one handed, he looked formidable. Confident. Graceful.

“I don’t get it.”

“It’s a simple concept. Just don’t let them see you after we get away.”

“No. No, _that_ I get. It’s just…” He watched as the droid moved through the narrow hallway, stepping over the upended and squirming robots as he knocked them on their backs.

 

“Just what?” He turned back to ask, frustrated growl clear in his voice.

“Just… You’re this much of a swordsman and you go for Trek over Wars?”

The droid narrowed its eyes at him before pivoting to take down the final machine. Without a word it grabbed his wrist and dragged him down the hallway.

“Lightsabers.” Fai said in open wonder. “You turned down the franchise with lightsabers. And for what? Vulcans?”

“Do you ever shut up?”

A back staircase of metal and concrete lead them up five flights of stairs that left Fai breathless and Blue Steel’s fans straining audibly.

 

* * *

 

 

\---->Blue Steel System Info:

Blue Steel version: 1.2 from 2027/7/18

Blue Steel fw hash: 63214742    neolib hash: 2d03b247    iqparam hash: 7a964ab1

Blue Steel serial: A5341022A430    rig serial: A0002_f364ccb9

Blue Steel usbconnection: Custom USB

Blue Steel ddr freq Mhz: 396

\---->impedance current sensor:

QUADRANT 1: 37 37 37 36 36 36

QUADRANT 2: 35 34 35 34 35 35

QUADRANT 3: 36 36 36 35 36 36

QUADRANT 4: 37 37 37 36 37 37

\---->impedance session sensor max:

QUADRANT 1: 37 37 37 36 36 36

QUADRANT 2: 35 34 35 34 35 35

QUADRANT 3: 36 36 36 35 36 36

QUADRANT 4: 37 37 37 36 37 37

 

* * *

 

 

As the door slid shut there was that strange moment of seeing himself through Black Steel’s eyes. It was like a shock of finding a mirror that didn’t quite work. He slipped the goggles off before the feeling got too strange, as ever going through that moment of disorientation as he switched back over.

“Oh.”

The blonde was looking at him in fascination, and for once not for the reason people usually did.

“You’re him.”  

Kurogane spared him a glance as he walked back to the shelves, starting to carefully reshelf the trackers and controllers. The android, now defaulting back to its normal settings, stood neutrally to the side, but observant. The idiot was smiling.

“What?” He demanded.

“Nothing just, all my notes for Syaoran said Blue Steel’s appearance was too perfect to be believable. I didn’t realize his structure was based on a real person.”

Kurogane frowned at him. “Black Steel.”

“Ah! And you even have the same scowl. How cute.”

Kurogane did a double take, equal parts offended and (for some inexplicable reason) flattered. People didn’t say that sort of thing to him very often. They didn’t find his scowls cute. Not that he wanted to be found cute. Obviously. But-

He cut the thought off in his head, annoyed that he was even having it.

To the best of his ability, he ignored him, picking up the arm again and fastening it into place against his shoulder.

The blonde gasped, obviously having expected it to go with its matching one back on the robot. “As if you weren’t giving off enough Skywalker vibes before…” He trailed off with a delighted smile. 

“Luke?” He asked, watching his own hand as he open and closed a fist.

“Anakin.” Fai corrected, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Kurogane frowned in distaste. “You were just leaving, right?”

“No, not yet!” The blonde advanced on him. “Not until we talk about Syaoran’s continued employment.”

“I’m the doctoral candidate he works under. The name’s Kurogane.”

“Perfect! You see-“

But he held up a hand for silence. “I was never going to fire the kid. I’m pissed, but he’s a good worker and frankly I’ve spent too long training him already. You on the other hand, seem like a terrible influence, and I think I’m going to report you.”

The blonde turned, balking as he realized the android had positioned himself by the door, effectively trapping him.

“Hey!” He waved it off, entirely overly friendly though his eyes showed his internal alarm. “Let’s talk about that plan, yeah? Why do that when you could let me help you.”

“Help me?” He said flatly, disbelieving. “Like how you helped by gluing cups to my robot’s head?”

“They’re supposed to be ears.” He pouted. “I thought they were cute.”

“I don’t want a cute robot, Idiot.”

“But,” The man seemed a little confused. “Don’t you? Or sexy, I guess? I could help you there. It’s so close. He just needs little tweeks. Your code too. It’s spaghetti. I could help you out with it if you let me go. Just,” He stepped closer as if to lay a hand on him. He glared at it until it was pulled back at the last moment. “Please.”

Kurogane’s body language relented a little and the blonde breathed a sigh of relief.

“I don’t want it sexy either.” It was almost more to himself than to the intruder.

“What? Then why-?”

“He was a hand first. Then an arm. Then only when that movement research was going well did we start on the rest of the robot. Every original part has been replaced or upgraded by now, but it’s still the same arm, you know what I mean? He was never supposed to be about sex.”

“So that’s why it looks like you…” Fai was connecting the dots. “The arm was made to fit your body, then they rebuilt the body to fit your arm again.”

“I wasn’t going to spend all this money and not make an arm that fit me.”

“And who exactly funds this sort of work? Somehow I don’t think the DOH is to thank.”

Kurogane frowned “We ended up with a private research contract. Are you familiar with Piffle?”

“Like the Piffle line of products?” He was suddenly animated. “The Piffle Featherlite Magic Wand? The Piffle People Pleaser? The Piffle Princess Pulser?”

Kurogane gave him a strange look. “You sure do know a lot about their products.”

“They buy ad time from my favorite camgirl.”

“Cam _girl_?”

“Yeah.” He said defensively. “What are you trying to say?”

“Nothing. Nothing… I just…” He shrugged. “I mean you just don’t look… you know.”

He shook his head, unbelieving. “Is it just ‘put Fai in a box’ day?”

Kurogane paused, looking down at him thoughtfully. “‘Fai’? That’s your name?”

“Yeah.” He first looked nonplused, then concerned. “What? Why are you smiling like that?”

“I guess I’ve just been thinking of you as ‘Idiot’ this whole time.”

Fai cracked a wry smile that looked like he might actually mean it. “Rude. So rude.”

And Kurogane… He was allowed to smile if it was derisive, right? And this loose and easy posture as he leaned a shoulder against the shelf, it was casual dominance, not friendly openness. He was almost sure of it.

Fai gave him an impish grin, but he wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve it.

“I should go.” It was obvious he meant exactly that. ‘Should’ not ‘want to’. His blue eyes traveled over all the robotic and VR tech (and Kurogane) like a starving man. So close and yet…

“The window is your best bet.” Kurogane said, empathizing with the feeling if not exactly feeling sympathetic. “It opens on to the English department roof and you can get down to the terrace from there. Our building is on too high of an alert right now to get you out the normal way without being seen.”

“Doesn’t the other building have security too?”

Kurogane scoffed. “What, is someone going to break in a steal a poem?”

Fai laughed, but it was more out of politeness than amusement. “What a romantic notion. Um… Kuro?”

‘-Gane’ he finished in his head, but bit his tongue. “What?”

“You won’t be too hard on, Syaoran, will you?”

Kurogane frowned but waved his hand in an ‘alright, already…’ gesture. Fai nodded, but he wasn’t finished.

“And so, that recording you have of me…” He winced.

Kurogane straightened up, looking across a little defensively. “You agreed to it. It was the second line in the Terms and Conditions you approved. ‘Trial may be recorded for quality assurance.’”

“I didn’t read them.”

“Maybe next time you should.”

Somehow the more pitiful Fai tried to look, the more agitated it made him.

“Do you think you could-”

“I’ll get rid of it.” He cut Fai off, putting him out of his misery. It wasn’t particularly fun to watch him squirming like this and God forbid he start trying to actually grovel. “You think I want evidence of this whole fiasco floating around either?”

“Thank you.” Fai visibly sagged in relief.

It took a little prodding and a few threats to get the blonde to leave but he was eventually herded towards the window.  

“That’s a pretty big drop, Kurgs.” He said dubiously.

“’Kurogane.’ And I’ll give you a hand down.”

Fai seemed fine with the plan until he was proffered the mechanical arm.

“Is that… safe?” He looked at it dubiously.

Kurogane rolled his eyes and changed to his left. “Better?”

With a goodbye to Black Steel that earned him an eyeroll from Kurogane and a wave from the droid, Fai climbed through the window frame.

Fai was even lighter than he looked as he took hold of the hand and hopped down the final few feet. Then, stupidly, instead of getting off the roof before he was spotted, he loitered.

“What now?” Kurogane growled.

“We should stay in touch.” Fai smiled up at him. “You know, for the sake of the kids. Kid? Syaoran. I think it would be good for him to know that Mommy and Daddy are getting along.”

Kurogane gaped down at him in fury. There were any number of things he wanted to yell. Instead he slammed the window shut.

“Don’t worry!” Fai’s muted voice called through the glass. “ _I’ll_ call _you_ , ok?”


	4. Chapter 4

Fai peeked over Syaoran’s shoulder into the study room.

“Ooo! Who’s your friend?” He asked lowly, well under the general murmur of the room. He gave her a smile when she glanced over. She returned it with a little, unsure wave.

“Her name is Sakura.” He said, watching Fai a little tiredly.

The blonde perked up. “And who is her friend? Wait! Who is her  _ friend’s _ friend?”

Syaoran grimaced as her brother and Yukito found their table.

“I thought you had a thing going with Kurogane. He never stops talking about you.”

Complaining. He never stopped  _ complaining  _ about him. But, well, same thing when it came to Fai.

“I thought we did too. But it seems I was wrong.” Fai narrowed his eyes at him. “He still talks about me?”

“I hear your name from him at least five times a day.” 

Again, it was a white lie. Kurogane referred to him not by name, but as ‘the idiot’ and occasionally ‘that bastard’. And  he wasn’t so much talking about Fai as talking about what Fai had done to his robot.

But who was going to split those hairs?

“Yeah well, he had his chance.” Fai affected disinterest. Badly. “Time to move on. Speaking of, who are those two?”

Syaoran cringed. “That’s her brother and his boyfriend. As in together. As in taken.”

But Fai just beamed at him. “Don’t be silly Syaoran. Gay rules are different. It never hurts to check.” Fai ran a hand through his hair subconsciously. “And he’s the older brother? That’s so cute. You’ve already got this whole family thing going.”

“Fai, can you please stop hitting on all my father figures?”

“It’s not my fault if we share a type, Syaoran.”

Fai said it so off hand for something that made him feel such instant revulsion.

“Please never, ever say that again.”

Fai moved to enter the room but found himself blocked bodily by Syaoran who was suddenly taking up the entire door frame. A hand came up to grab Fai’s collar and drag him down to the young man’s eye level. Completely caught by surprise, Fai let him.

“Fai,” he said levelly. “I love you like a brother. But I will  _ murder _ you if you even think about it.”

 

* * *

 

 

“It was bad enough when Black Steel kept telling me to call you back, but now Syaoran too?”

“He has your best interests at heart. They both do.”

He could practically hear Fai’s smile through the phone. 

“Get your worm out of my robot.” The ears had been bad enough. Kurogane had been very upset when he realized the tampering had gone further than the aesthetic.  

“What worm?” Fai asked innocently.

“How are you even still getting to him. My lab is secure.”

“Probably the Wifi, duh.”

“My robot doesn’t have Wifi, Idiot.”

“Doesn’t he?”

Kurogane pulled his phone down from his ear, checking just on the off chance. Sure enough there was, ‘Blue Steel’ Wifi, password protected with a phrase he didn’t know.

“Goddamn it! When did you even do that?”

“Such a mystery.” Fai’s voice lilted through the receiver. “But if you want to get your robot cleaned, you should probably meet me somewhere in person so I can do it safely.”

 

* * *

 

 

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* * *

 

 

”This is nice.” Fai grinned as he took another nibble of his cotton candy. “ The Pier on a sunny day. You. Me. The droid.”

Kurogane pinched the bridge of his nose, counting to ten in his head. “I thought we were going to meet at your apartment.”

“Are you asking me to take you home?” Fai teased as he leaned against the guardrail, one long leg crossing the other at the ankle, a telltale pale compared to the tanness of his arms and face. “So eager. At least let me enjoy our date a little bit first, Kurgy.”

“This isn’t- My name is  _ not _ Kurgy. It’s  _ Kurogane _ ,” His eyes widened a bit triumphantly at the next, “Fai D. Flourite, class of 2024, freelance tech consultant and haver of too many bank accounts for it to not be some sort of scam.”

The blonde didn’t react much, taking the words in stride. So it seemed he wasn’t the only one who could do a little hacking. Either that or Syaoran had snitched on him. In any case, anything he  _ really _ wanted hidden was buried far beyond the likes of Kurogane.

Fai daintily tore off another bite, pink sugar melting on his tongue. “There’s a booth at the end of the pier – knock down a stack of bottles, and get a stuffed animal. There’s this dragon that I just really have my eye on, except wouldn’t you know it, I have this pesky broken finger and I can’t throw the ball. Isn’t that just the saddest thing you’ve ever heard?”

Kurogane stepped closer, something that was supposed to look menacing. “Take your back door out of my droid.”

Fai snaked his good hand up to pat against his chest. “Win me a dragon and I’ll think about it.”

An unexpected voice sounded close by, making them both turn.  “You would like the stuffed dragon?” Black Steel asked in that voice that was so similar to Kurogane’s own but with that tiny bit of reverb they just couldn’t get rid of. To Fai’s delight and Kurogane’s horror, the droid ran a hand through Fai’s bangs, pushing them back to see his eyes. “Would that make you happy, Idiot?”

Kurogane pulled back, scoffing a laugh.

Fai turned into the mechanical embrace, looking up with doe eyes. “What  _ are _ we?” He asked, wistfully placing a hand lightly on his cheek.

The robot laced their fingers together. “I’m sorry, Idiot. I didn’t quite catch that. Please-“

“No.” Kurogane said flatly, grabbing Fai’s wrists and pulling him along, out towards the waves and deeper ocean. “I’ll get you that goddamn dragon myself if it keeps me from having to watch this.”

 

* * *

 

 

Twenty minutes and one heated argument about pity prizes later, Fai was the proud new owner of a plush red dragon about the size of a toddler. He held it happily to his chest as they turned back to collect their droid.

He hadn’t wandered from where, after too many attempts to ‘help’, Kurogane had told him to ‘wait over there’, but a small crowd had gathered and a few bills and coins had been thrown on Kurogane’s backpack that they’d left at his feet.  

A look of surprise passed between them. They’d apparently gotten more focused on the ball throwing and subsequent argument than they thought they had.

There were awed whispers and a few derisive comments as they gravitated to the back of the crowd. 

“So realistic!” 

“I read a tutorial on how to fake lights like that.” 

“He should just get a real job.”

A girl walked up, dropping a dollar in before turning to pose while her friend took a picture of the two of them. Blue Steel waved, mirroring her posture for the camera.

“You taught him how to busk?” Fai asked quietly, barely holding back laughter.

“I think he came up with this on his own.” He’d be more angry at Fai’s amusement, but he’d never really let his droid loose in the wild as it were. He was doing so much better than expected. He even let himself grin a little. Which was fine. Everyone was distracted anyway.

“Well, should the sex work not pan out, at least you know he has a promising career as a street performer lined up.”

“We should get him out of here.” Kurogane said, corner of his mouth still curling up that tiny bit, no matter how hard he tried to keep it in check.

“And how about us?” Fai said, turning to him, brow raised in question. “Should we also ‘get out of here’?”

He sighed. “Look, not like  _ that _ , but if you want, we could go to your place.”

Fai’s smile slipped a little as he was caught off guard. “But my place is small and messy and horrible. Don’t you know a gentleman usually offers his own house?”

“I don’t know…” Kurogane said, looking back to watch his creation hesitate in confusion as a faction of the crowd asked him to ‘robot’. “Seems pretty heteronormative to me.” He side-eyed Fai. “I wouldn’t want to put you in a box or anything.” When Fai frowned he broke the pretense. “That, and I’m still fifty percent sure you’re some sort of criminal. I don’t want you to know where I live yet.”  

‘Yet’?

Fai could work with ‘yet’.

 

* * *

 

 

Fai bent down, gathering the dollars and coins and, not knowing what else to do with them, handed them to the bot. He held them awkwardly between two palms, a few coins slipping through his fingers, bouncing back down to the boardwalk. The backpack was passed to Kurogane. 

“Sweet moves there, Madd Chadd, but I think it’s time we get going.” Fai pat the android on the shoulder. “Time to tell the nice people hasta la vista.” 

The crowd started to disperse, not wanting to be there when their entertainer inevitably broke character. 

The droid turned to Fai. “Descubrí discurso en español. ¿Usted tiene ganas de continuar en español, Idiota?”

The syllables poured out of the machine fluidly and Fai could only watch in mystification. “Uh...no hablo español?” 

Fai looked back at Kurogane, who was smirking at him.

“Really?” He asked.

Kurogane just shrugged. “Why not?”


	5. Chapter 5

“We shouldn’t…” Fai said, doing absolutely nothing to climb off of Kurogane’s lap.

“We shouldn’t.” He agreed, hot breath ghosting over Fai’s collarbone where he had the thin material of Fai’s v-neck t-shirt pulled to the side.

Fai groaned and buried his nose in spiky black hair, toes dragging along the sheets as Kurogane started sucking at him again.

This hadn’t been Kurogane’s plan. He would have never chanced coming over if this had been anywhere even close to being on his radar. A tiny apartment, dirty dishes in the sink, and the blonde idiot. What could possibly be sexy about that?

Except he wasn’t an idiot. And that was the whole problem.

It had all started innocently enough. Fai had let him in. Offered him a drink. Kurogane had turned it down, insisting that Fai finally get to work on his droid.

Maybe sensing that Kurogane was getting feed up, he did. He’d dropped the teasing, and with something like wistfulness got to work, sorting through code, cleaning up after the fun he’d had weeks ago. Then they would split ways presumably. After it was done, what reason would Fai have to bother Kurogane anymore?

Except as he watched, he grew more and more fascinated with his work. Of course he’d looked at the code, but never really understood how it worked until he saw Fai dismantling it. It was like some sort of insidious virus, digging claws into the basic structure of the droid’s operating system. A foothold here. A hostage system there. The blonde’s mood started turning around about the time Kurogane asked him to slow down, reading through a few lines before telling Fai to delete them. He was beaming as Kurogane grew distracted, asking for explanations of more complicated sections and forgetting that the whole point was to get rid of them.

“You’re really good at this.” He’d said out loud, more surprise than flattery.

“Um… thanks?”

“No, I mean- You might be an actual genius.”

He watched as Fai squirmed in his seat, a stiff smile ghosting over his lips. For someone so cocky, he was acting like he’d never heard a compliment in his life. He scoffed, trying to brush it off.

“No I’m serious.” Kurogane said, gesturing to the screen from where he watched on the bed. “If you can do work like this, I can’t figure out why you don’t have a real job?”

Fai huffed as his eyebrows shot up. “Wow, rude much?” But he didn’t look offended. He looked embarrassed and proud and shy and-

 _That_ was when things had gone wrong.

Fai turned back to say something but Kurogane cut him off with a soft press of his lips at the corner of his mouth.

It was warm. And kind. And intimate and tender.

It was perfect.

For about two seconds.

Fai pulled away to the very edge of his chair, the back of it becoming like  a shield, keeping Kurogane away as he sat spooked, eyes wide and fingertips just covering where Kurogane’s lips had been a moment before.

“Kurgy!?” The blonde demanded in a scandalized tone.

“Are you serious?” He was at a loss. Hadn’t they…? Wasn’t this…? “You’ve been hitting on me for _weeks_ now.”

“You kissed me!” Fai accused.

“And you sent me an unsolicited dick pic yesterday. What am I supposed to think?”

“Yeah but I didn’t-“ Fai cut himself off, hiding his mouth between two hands. “It wasn’t my dick.” He admitted. “I got it off google search.”

Huh. He’d thought the lighting had been suspiciously high quality.

“Should I go? I can go.”

The tension hung between them, just as it did in Fai’s skittish shoulders. “Um… I’m not sure?”

Kurogane felt awkward trying to talk to Fai over the back of the office chair while it looked a little like Fai was actively trying to hide behind it.

“Maybe... Maybe I could kiss you again? And then you could decide.”

“You didn’t like me an hour ago.”

“I didn’t know you were this smart an hour ago.”

Fai let the hand guarding his mouth fall the slightest bit.

“You think I’m smart.” It wasn’t quite a question.

Kurogane cracked a grin. “Yeah.” He stood up slowly, looming over the chair as he bent forward, hand braced on the armrest. Fai watched him like a hawk, but didn’t pull away. “I do.”

Their mouths met again and this time Fai didn’t pull away. Instead he sat still, then after a moment of shyness, pressed the slightest bit into the touch. Kurogane made a tiny noise in the back of his throat, a slight encouragement, so different than all the grunts and scoffs Fai had heard from him thus far.

Kurogane angled closer and caught Fai’s bottom lip between both of his own. The slight touch of Fai’s fingertips graced his neck as he braced a hand lightly against him.

Kurogane pulled back the slightest bit, taking a slow breath.

The third kiss was deep, Fai opening up for him, a tongue working against his own. Fai’s own groan surprised him and he pulled back at the sound. Back and off the chair, leaning against the desk with uncertainty written across his face.

“Fai-“ Kurogane started then cut himself off as his knee hit the desk chair. He pushed it out of the way with a little exasperated annoyance. Now it was just him, Fai and the three foot void that separated them. “Fai.” He repeated, extending his palm.

Fai stared at it, then slowly, hesitantly put his hand in Kurogane’s.

“Don’t make fun of me.” He warned quietly.

Kurogane almost didn’t think he’d heard him correctly. “Why would I- Hang on, of all people to say that-“

“I’m serious!” Fai looked down at him fiercely, small frown on his face.

Kurogane instantly relented. “Ok.” He said in a soothing tone, his thumb stroking at the back of his hand. “I won’t. Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Fai took another step closer, not looking directly at him even as he pushed a hand against Kurogane’s chest, guiding him to sit on the edge of the bed. Fai followed, thighs on either side of Kurogane’s. He reached a broad hand around to support the small of Fai’s back as that weight settled into his lap.

Fai still wasn’t looking at him. Kurogane tipped his head closer, murmuring into the quiet. “It’s alright.” He coaxed. “You can trust-“

He was silenced as Fai pressed against him again, tongue licking the words and any coherent thoughts right out of his mouth. Minutes passed as they moved intimately against each other, Kurogane letting Fai set the pace as he mellowed from his aggressive seduction into something a bit more mutual.

Kurogane rolled his hips up and Fai gasped, but couldn’t pull away, bottom lip caught as it was between Kurogane’s teeth. His eyes went wide, then closed completely as he ground back down with a groan. Kurogane released him, head ducking down to suck at the base of Fai’s neck and that’s when he _really_ started making noise.

“Oh! Oh, that- Yes, I-“ It was incoherent and rambling and _so_ encouraging. Kurogane growled Fai’s name against his neck as his hand dropped down to squeeze his ass, pulling his hips closer, grinding up against him.

“We shouldn’t…” Fai said, doing absolutely nothing to climb off of Kuorgane’s lap.

“We shouldn’t.” He agreed, hot breath ghosting over Fai’s collarbone where he had the thin material of Fai’s v-neck pulled to the side.

Fai groaned and buried his nose in spiky black hair, toes dragging along the sheets as Kurogane started sucking at him again. A hand pushed at his chest and the signal was plenty clear. He moved back, laying back properly, head against the pillows. Fai followed quickly, crawling hands and knees over him, making Kurogane’s dick twitch at the sight. Fai descended with a quick and dominating kiss before pulling back.

“This is bad.”

Kurogane looked up at him in subtle worry, but the look on Fai’s face was anything but remorseful as he sat back against Kurogane’s hips.

“We… shouldn’t.” Kurogane repeated it so hesitantly it was almost a question. Fai nodded with a bitten lower lip and his hands pushed eagerly at Kurogane’s shirt. Fai ran his hands up from waist to rib cage as he leaned down. He paused, lips hovering teasingly over a nipple, looking up at him expectantly. “It’s a terrible idea.” Kurogane hazarded, but it seemed to do the trick as Fai lowered his lips, warm, wet and teasing against his sensitive skin. “Oh, God.” Slipped out naturally. He had to put effort into, “You’re so-“ Kurogane’s mouth clamped down, refusing to say the word ‘naughty’.

“Am I bad?” Fai purred against him.

“So bad.” Kurogane guessed, suddenly finding himself hard pressed to find any similar phrase. (Or at least any that he thought he could actually survive saying.) “Just the worst.”

He might be more put off, but the way Fai’s tongue rolled against him, the way a finger nail teased, he was struggling to follow the conversation.

“And just think of poor Syaoran.”

That precarious balance of horny and weirded-out tipped so very swiftly to the latter.

“Stop.” Kurogane said, pushing Fai away with a hand to the top of his head. “Why the fuck are you talking to me about Syaoran when my dick is hard?”

“Because,” Fai said, suddenly uncertain. “Because he was so mad when I started flirting with you? He’s not anymore.” Fai quickly amended, as if that was Kurogane’s worry. “I just thought, it makes it feel forbidden, you know? Makes it more exciting.”

“Makes it weird.”

Fai bit his lip. “Is this not doing it for you?”

“Maybe we could go back to not talking?”

Fai pulled away again, hands going to cover his mouth as they had before. “I ruined the mood, didn’t I?”

“No…” Kurogane reassured him, lyingly, but none the less. He sat up, running his hand through Fai’s hair. “Maybe let’s just…” And how to phrase that delicately? Be normal? “Let’s go back to basics?” But Fai was thoroughly embarrassed, cheeks burning red. “Hey, hey now…” Kurogane said, going back to soothing again.

“I was trying to be sexy.” He said quietly, still apologetic.

“You _are_ sexy. Can’t you feel how sexy I think you are?”

With a little encouragement, Fai slipped a hand down past his waistband. The touch was smooth around him as he gave a little squeeze and he let himself groan through the pressure. Fai smiled down at him a little sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize.” Kurogane assured him. “And no need to get self conscious. There’s no one here to impress. It’s just you, me and him.”

“Him?” Fai glanced over his shoulder to find the android staring at him politely. “No.” He said. “That’s too weird. Make him turn around or something. If I wanted to be stared at at times like these, I would have a cat.”

“But the dragon is ok?”

The oversized plushie watched with a beady stare from his perch on the corner of Fai’s desk.

He frowned, making a troubled eye contact with it. “Maybe we should turn him around too.”

Kurogane groaned. “Whatever. Black Steel, enter sleep mode.”

He waited but nothing happened. Fai winced.

Oh.

Right.

“Blue Steel.” He ground out, glaring up at Fai. “Enter sleep mode.”

“Kurgy?” Fai looked down at him in concern. “Kurgy why are you looking at me like that?”

Fai had ruined one mood but created another that, in his opinion, would do just as well. It was much rougher when Kurogane pulled him down and flipped them, pinning Fai to the bed. The surprised moans it tore out of him were so guttural that it almost made him wonder if Fai might have been faking before.

 

* * *

 

 

“Your robot is better at flirting than you are.” Fai said, curled up to Kurogane’s side opposite the hardware on his right shoulder.

A lazy hand came up to card through his hair. “My robot was focus grouped.” Kurogane said, his voice low and mellow.

Fai sighed in a way that turned into a yawn.  “So?” He murmured, eyes falling shut.

“So that’s an unfair advantage.”

Fai just nodded slightly because, fair enough. “You didn’t break my finger though. Tick in the Kuro-column.”

“Are you going to keep comparing us like this?”

“Does that make you nervous?” Fai looked up at him a little wickedly. “I mean he is a pretty tough act to follow.”

Kurogane frowned, staring up at the ceiling, not entirely sure if he should take that as an insult or a compliment. On his chest, Fai’s hand kept shying away from where his attentions obviously lay.  

“You can ask about it if you want.”

“Are you sure?”

“After _that_?” Kurogane snorted. “Yeah, I think we’re there.”

Fai had requested some very specific things, ‘to prove a point’ he’d said. Kurogane hadn’t wanted the details behind that psychology, but the act itself… Well, he’d been amenable. Accommodating. And ultimately, appreciative.

“Thanks for the help by the way.” Fai said, tucking his chin a little. “I’m usually better at that but I mean…” He held up the splinted finger for a moment. “And I’m not left handed so...”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I didn’t mean to call you D-”

Kurogane’s firm voice cut him off. “Yeah, you can stop apologizing any time now. I get it, just… not my kink.”

Fai nodded against his chest. Both of them cringed a little at the memory.

“To be honest, it isn’t really mine either.” Fai hid behind a hand as he spoke, as if he could say it and yet not say it at the same time. “I guess I just got in the habit.”

Which begged the question, why they Hell would-

Fai interrupted, saving him from having to actually complete that thought.  

Out of the frying pan...

“So how did you lose your arm?”

… and into the fire.

“I didn’t.” He said, aggressively ignoring the little knot of rage at Fai’s tactlessness. He’d volunteered Fai’s permission after all. “I never had one.”

“Do you know why?”

“Just a fluke I guess.”  

Everyone had a theory of course. A renaissance of chemical synthesis was taking off at the time his mother had been pregnant and legislation and regulation had lagged behind for a few years. There’d been concerns about the air and water quality where they’d been living. It could have just been genetic damage. Someone had even once told him it had to do with the phase of the moon at the time of conception. So yeah, no idea.  

“Can I?” Fai said, shifting more fully on top of him, pointing to the hardware of his shoulder.

He was so, so light against his chest.

“Knock yourself out.”

As Fai leaned down to inspect the machinery, Kurogane let himself gaze over a skinny shoulder, down the trail of Fai’s spine where the sheets were settling in the small of his back. He gathered fine blonde hair to the side of his neck, letting his fingers run through it. There was a hicky on Fai’s right shoulder and it made Kurogane sober at the implications. It was something Fai could hide easy enough, but he hadn’t meant to be leaving marks at all.

“I’ve never seen a permanent installation like this.”

“Connoisseur of prosthesis are you?”

“No.” Fai shot a defensive look over his shoulder, but Kurogane was in too good a mood to care. “I’m just saying. Doesn’t it get uncomfortable?”

“It’s actually a lot more comfortable than most. Installation is a pain though. They have to connect it to the bone.”

“‘A pain?’” Fai’s light touch ran the seam between skin and rubberized plastic. “That sounds like an understatement.”

“It is.” Kurogane turned to watch Fai’s profile. “But I’ll have to do it again someday when this one is obsolete, so I try not to think about it too hard.”

Fai caught his eye, tucking his chin behind a pale shoulder a little shyly. “But it’s worth it, right?” He shifted down his front carefully, resting his forearms against the hollow where Kurogane’s ribcage ended. He looked too pleased with himself.

“Why do you say that?”

“I mean, it basically makes you a cyborg.”

Kurogane gaped. Technically… yeah?

“Is that what’s got you turned on again?” Because of course he had noticed.

Fai grinned a little guiltily, squirming pointedly between his legs. “I think the real question is why _doesn’t_ that turn you on?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Fai?” Syaoran gaped. His friend entered the lab as if he had every right to be there. He glanced back at where Kurogane sat at his desk, surprisingly unalarmed, if a little suspicious. “What are you doing here? How did you get past the lock?”

“The answer to the second is because I’m amazing and the answer to the first is so that I could share this beautiful moment with both of you.” With the flourish of his left hand he removed the splint from the right, curling the finger into a fist. “Now, I can do _this_ again.” He proudly raised his middle finger.

“But you’ve been flipping everyone off the entire time.”

“Yes, but now I can do so of my own volition. Which I am doing, by the way. Fuck you guys for getting it broken in the first place. I had to learn how to type one handed.” As if he hadn’t already known. “Speaking of, how are you today, Kurgs?”

Kurogane narrowed his eyes. “When you say ‘speaking of’, do you say that because I only have one hand or because I’m the one you’re typing to when you-“

“Hey!” Syaoran interrupted him, the ‘et tu Brutus?’ clear in his eyes.

Kurogane scoffed, then turned to Fai. “What _are_ you doing here?”

“Wait,” Syaoran interrupted. “You didn’t buzz him through the door? Fai did you actually break in again?”

“Calm down, Kid.” Kurogane grumbled before Fai could brag over false achievements more than he already did . “I gave him a pass. And I ask again,” This time to Fai. “What are you doing here?”

“I brought you a snack, my darling.”

Syaoran’s eyes shot open wide, but they both ignored him.

“Twinkies aren’t food.” Kurogane glared at the cake bar in Fai’s proffered hand.

“Yes and it’s nice to see you too.” Fai walked around to Kurogane’s desk, opening the package and taking a bite off the end. Then he did a double take of Kurogane’s screen and almost choked in the process. “Are you watching porn?”

“No.” He said flatly.

“Yes you are!”

“I’m _researching_ porn. There is a difference.”  A notebook under Kurogane’s robotic right hand spoke to this, covered in algorithms and diagrams so complex, Fai would probably need to dig his old textbooks out to properly understand them. He’s always been more of a code guy than a math guy.

But it was hard to concentrate on that given what was happening on screen. He pointed to it accusingly. “And you get paid for this?’

“Tch! If you can call my measly stipend ‘getting paid’.”

The conversation fell to a lull as Fai got distracted by the video, smile growing tighter until his eyebrows shot up and he abruptly looked away at the next most exciting thing in the room which happened to be Syaoran and his laptop.

“It doesn’t seem fair that you get to sit back and watch blow jobs while you make your poor intern refactor your code. Which- ” Fai nodded to him. “ Syaoran, you are doing a wonderful job by the way. Very creative use of templating.”

“Um.. thanks?”

“Not that i’m surprised.” Fai continued, more to Kurogane. “I taught him everything he knows.”

Kurogane stopped where he was keeping a tally on the notepad and paused the video with a tap to the spacebar. “Excuse you? When Syaoran first came in here he didn’t know static from const. I’m pretty sure I’m the one that’s been teaching him the actually useful stuff.”

Syaoran frowned. That was kind of insulting if technically true. But he’d rather change the subject than argue about it. “Black Steel is testing better in the trials since your contributions, Fai. We’re finally moving on to the next stage of the experiments. Which, if you remember,” This was directed at Kurogane. “Only happened because I showed initiative in bringing him to Fai in the first place.”  

Kurogane narrowed his eyes. They’d had this ‘discussion’ at least once a day since receiving university approval. “Yeah? Well, don’t break your arm jerking yourself off about it.”

“Is that true?” Fai asked, looking back from Syaoran at the table to Kurogane at the desk. For all that the later was maintaining his grumpy facade, Fai caught the satisfied look in his eye.

“And Piffle is interested in the Mokona prototype too!” Syaoran continued with excitement. “They’re talking about a toy deal. That should make some real money.”

Fai smiled. Money that Syaoran would probably never see, if he knew his research contracts. Though, a nice bonus might not be out of the question. “That’s great, Syaoran! Though… What’s a Mokona?”

“Oh!” Syaoran smiled at him. “It’s this project back from when we were-”

Something flew at Fai’s head and he caught it just before impact. “Kurgy!” Fai chastised.

The man in question just grinned to himself. “That’s a Mokona.”

Fai looked down to the thing in his hands. It was basically a white blob with a cute face and stubby legs. “And how is this a sex toy? Does it vibrate or...”

“What!?” Syaoran balked. “No! No, like an actual toy for children to play with. I assume  Piffle has a sister company that does this sort of thing?”

In his hands the creature started squirming, righting itself, then smiling wide. “Hello!” It cheered. “My name is Mokona! What’s yours? Would you like to be best friends?”

Fai couldn’t help the smile. “It’s so cute! I want to take it home!”

“Feel free.” Kurogane said in a huff from his desk.

They both looked at him.

“What, really?” Fai asked.

“Yeah. I could use a few days away from that voice.”

Syaoran looked at him shrewdly, knowing his boss liked the little robot far more than he let on to anyone. Kurogane caught his eye with a subtle glare and Syaoran kept his mouth shut.

Fai was apparently too busy to notice. “Hello, Mokona! My name is Fai.”

It gave a happy jump in his hands.

“Hello, Fai! What a wonderful name! We are going to have so much _fun_ together!”

“This is adorable.” Fai said, giving Mokona a little squeeze. “How do you get inside?”

“You don’t.” Kurogane said flatly. “There’s no way past the skin without breaking it. You can’t change the programing. Can’t power it down. It just…” He watched with a familiar morbid fascination as Mokona started dancing. “Keeps going.”

 

* * *

 

 

> git log --author “kurogane”

commit 731cc81bedccf7dccac78b716dee0f2753ea958a

Author: kurogane <ksuwa@svuca.edu>

Date:     Mon April 24 13:45:47 2028 -0800

             Expanded thesaurus of sex terminology

 

commit ca580cbfcff3536fa01219fedd090a0615b8d17f

Author: kurogane <ksuwa@svuca.edu>

Date:     Wed April 26 17:43:43 2028 -0800

             didn’t actually fix deadlock in arm controller last time

 

commit f3146497761eac58e2c851456f50d2832e5a3155

Author: kurogane <ksuwa@svuca.edu>

Date:    Thurs April 27 16:49:46 2028 -0800

            Prevented deadlock in arm controller

 

commit 6b9afa5c9e7318b8a4777b22e1f577f0581bc668

Author: kurogane <ksuwa@svuca.edu>

Date:    Thurs April 27 15:36:40 2028 -0800

            Scaling to db

 

* * *

 

Syaoron approached Kurogane’s office with an attentive ear. He’d learned over the past few weeks the importance of not interrupting in the middle of delicate experiments. With his ear to the door, he could just make out Kurogane’s voice.

“Tell me when it hurts.”

“You mean _if_ it hurts?”

Fai was here more often than not these days, eager to help out. Through some magic of budgeting Kurogane was working on hiring him on as a consultant.

There was a pause, then Kurogane again. “Tell me _before_ it hurts.”

“Are you sure this is safe?”

“Should be.”

“What if it squeezes too tight? This is a bad idea.”

“This is _your_ idea.”

“Still...”

Syaoran grit his teeth and knocked. An “Oh shit!” from Fai and more rustling than was probably justifiable followed before Kurogane called for him to come in. They were both standing, put together but with pink cheeks and suspiciously messy hair, looking over a monitor with algorithms and a real time graph showing stats from somewhere, though Syaoran would have to take a closer look to reason out what.

“Syaoran!” Fai said too enthusiastically. “We were just running some calibrations.”

“Oh.”

“Setting a few safety parameters.”

“Um, ok.” It wasn’t like he’d asked. “Whatever. I just- Kurogane, do you have a minute? Only, I need this signed off on.”

It was a short form, an evaluation the university requested in return for the work study he’d been doing in the robotics lab.

“Sure.” Kurogane said, with a dismissive gesture from his robotic hand. “Just put it on my desk.”

On the screen, the graph updated with high values every time the hand moved. Interesting.

He frowned. “Oh… Um, actually I was hoping you could-”

“When is it due by?”

“In like an hour?” He winced.

Kurogane made no secret of what he thought about that as he held out a hand, taking the paper with bad grace. It was almost entirely filled out, the only thing left for him to do was tick boxes and sign at the bottom.

“Kurgs,” Fai chided, reading over his shoulder as he worked. “Syaoran isn’t ‘satisfactory’. He’s at least ‘good’ if not ‘excellent’.”

“Was he ‘good’ when he broke your finger?”

Fai waved it away as if he _hadn’t_ just spent a month and a half milking that injury for all it was worth. “Bygones!” He declared.

As much as Syaoran had originally had misgivings about these two getting together, it did tend to work out in his favor. Like how when Fai’s hand ran along the curve of Kurogane’s shoulder, he seemed to relax, marking a few more ‘good’s and even an ‘excellent’ on his report.

Kurogane signed with a grumble and Syaoran saw himself out, closing the door behind him. He paused there to watch Black Steel and the Mokona bounce by, caught in a feedback loop of chatter as the scientists let the AIs run their course together. Their voices died out as they turned the corner and walked out of view.

Syaoran leaned back against the door frame.

It was almost strange how perfectly Fai and Kurogane had fit together, not quite yin and yang, but something like it, each balancing the other until they both seemed like halfway reasonable people. It was such a nice thing to witness.

Suddenly the door rattled in its frame as a weight hit it from the other side. Syaoran flinched reflexively, crunching the paper in his hand.

“Oh Mr. Vader!” Fai laughed a little breathlessly through the door.

“Shut up!” Kurogane groaned, but not from frustration. “I said we weren’t going to do that.”

Ok, maybe ‘witness’ wasn’t the word he was looking for.

Syaoran pushed off the wall, retreating at a brisk pace, leaving the hallway empty.

 

* * *

 

  
debug: Received SIGCHLD.  
debug: End of interactive session; stdin 13, stdout (read 1244, sent 1244), stderr 0 bytes.  
debug: pty_cleanup_proc called  
debug: Command exited with status 0.  
debug: Received exit confirmation.  
log: Closing connection to 128.11.22.33

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>    
>  
> 
>  
> 
> In the spirit of the KuroFai Olympics, please consider stopping by to leave a score for [this Team Light fic](https://kurofai.dreamwidth.org/90926.html), and her [sister fic from Team Dark](https://kurofai.dreamwidth.org/90225.html). <3


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